DISAPPEARANCE – This former safe-driller turned author was one of the organizers of the uprisings that shook French jails in the 1970s. He battled a protracted illness before passing away at his house near Nice.
The writer Serge Livrozet, a key member in Michel Foucault’s Prisoners’ Action Committee and the early days of Release, has passed away, his family confirmed to AFP on Wednesday.
One of the organizers of the revolts that shook French jails in the 1970s, the scholar passed away on Tuesday at the age of 83 at his home in the Nice region, “after a long illness,” they noted.
Serge Livrozet, who comes from a lowly family, said he began working at the age of 13 as a plumber before drilling safes. In the documentary Death is deservedde Nicolas Drolc, which was made in his honor and was released in 2017, he claimed, “The only way out of my social status was (to) take money where I considered there was too much.”
He participated in the Prisoners’ Action Committee campaign to abolish prisons in May 1968, co-founding it with philosopher Michel Foucault. He was one of the original creators of the publication Release, which he immediately quit.
He co-starred in The Timetable with Laurent Cantet in 2001. He is the author of fifteen novels and articles, including From Prison to Revolt and Love Letter to the Child I Won’t Have (republished in 2022 by L’Esprit rapteur).
He made news in the 1980s when it was said that he oversaw a Paris printing press used to produce fake currency, in what at the time believed to be the largest case of currency forgery ever. Before being finally found not guilty, he had been behind bars for ten months in this case, giving him time to write The footprint condemning the persecution of him.
“Every time I came into contact with a power of any kind, whether it a prison, judicial, economic, medical, or even religious, I came into contact with those attempting to seize control of my thoughts.
Death is merited, he confided. The requirement for social control over brains I’m an embarrassed guy since I don’t match any stereotypes.